1.Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a monitoring system for monitoring the progress of neurological diseases, especially for monitoring patients with disturbed motor function.
2.Description of the Related Art
The tasks involved in monitoring the progress of neurological diseases include that of observing the effect of drug administration. For example, in some patients with Parkinson's disease, a reduction of the duration of action is observed after about four years, which initially can still be compensated by reducing the time intervals between drug doses. In the further course of the disease, the duration of action changes irregularly and hyperkinesia may even appear after the drug has been taken, which can be so violent in individual cases that it constitutes an indication for epileptic surgical intervention.
Fluctuations of drug effects are thus a frequent reason for hospitalization of patients with disturbed motor function to allow,observation following drug intake. Observation periods spread over days in time intervals of, say, hours, are desirable. However, in everyday practice, this can scarcely be organized to a sufficient extent, even in the case of hospital treatment. Assessments are based on few samples, which, to make matters worse, are made by different persons on the basis of insufficiently standardized criteria.